It has been a fantastic week. I feel like a new man. The sun has been shinning, birds singing, wind blowing, weeds growing...Just the other day I was walking through my neighborhood when I noticed several lawns are already green! How can that be? Well, they are full of weeds. Weeds just don't seem to die no matter what weather is thrown at them. This winter we have found out you can't drown them either!
One of my neighbors just moved in recently to the house that has occupied one of the nicest lawns on the block for years. I new the previous owner and what he did to keep his yard so lush and weed free. While talking to the new owner I asked about the lawn care company that usually services the house and if they were going to continue using the same company. To which the new owner replied, "No...everyone has weeds. It's part of life."
It' got me thinking about how most of us have just resolved that weeds in our lawn is a part of life. But here was a man who possessed the best lawn on the block and he was happy to just blend in and let weeds live in his lawn because everyone else has weeds.
In the same way I think that many Christians are content to live with the dark areas of their lives. We believe our own lies when we convince ourselves that everyone else has dark ares of their lives so ours are no big deal. We gather around our weaknesses. We celebrate them together. The thought of moving beyond them - living without them - that is not even on our radar. So we blend into the fabric of the very society that we are called to lead to Christ!
For too many Church is now celebrated as the place of the mixed up, messed up, dinged up, drink up, stuck up, split up, anything goes as long as nobody knows place to hang out!
As we begin year two of Fellowship Church, let me emphatically state that Fellowship is a safe community for the messed up and mixed up BUT we are to be known as the place of the fixed up. As the Body of Christ we are to be a circuit connected to the current of Christ power and love. A people who not only sing about but begin experiencing the incredible goodness of a God who loved us enough to accept us but also enough to change us.
Here is a scripture that I have been thinking on for over 2 months now. It is the foundational scripture for this series. It's Luke 11:33-36
(Luke 11:33-36) "No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a basket. Instead, it is put on a lampstand to give light to all who enter the room. Your eye is a lamp for your body. A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul. But an evil eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness. Make sure that the light you think you have is not really darkness. If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight is shining on you."
I believe that Fellowship Church - an all churches by that matter - are not to be churches that blend in. I can think of 3 characteristics of churches that blend in.
1. The strive to keep members happy. This is the goal of the leadership. Don't rock the boat - keep the money coming in and the paycheck in the bank.
2. They stay away from controversial topics. They basically preach the same messages over, and over and over hoping to duplicate yesterday's results. They speak to a generations that have come and gone while the current generation is deaf to their communication - not because the message is out of style but because they are no longer speaking the language of the current culture. My life long job as a minister of the gospel is to translate the timeless messages of Christ into modern culture and produce eternal results.
3. They remain cautious. They keep doing what they have always done because the have spent so much time figuring it out that their system is now their trophy. The though of trying anything new has long ago died because they have figured out what they were good at and they have done it so long that they lost the drive to get good at anything else.
Fellowship Church is not designed to be any of these three. Let me share with you a little about FC. Our Mission Statement - the orders which we are destined to carry out - To lead people to become full-time followers of Christ by connecting them to God, His Spirit and each other.
We truly believe that if we come to know God through the light and life of Jesus Christ, allow His Spirit to fill our hearts and minds, and if we will open our lives up to each other so that no one walks through life alone, we will become full-time followers of Christ in all areas of our lives.
Fellowship Church has four purposes. They are to REACH people, RENEW their minds and lives, RELATE to each other in small groups and RESPOND to needs in our church, city and culture.
Fellowship Church - any Christ proclaiming, Spirit empowered church is not meant to blend in.
Tomorrow we will look at 3 signs of churches who stand out.
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